My name is Laura James and I write romantic fiction. The romantic fiction I write is published in novel, short story and flash fiction form.

This isn’t a secret. Nor is it a brag. This is me standing up, taking aim and shooting out arrows of positivity. Whoosh!

During the 11th to the 14th July 2014, I attended my third Romantic Novelists’ Association conference.

It was fabulous – a concoction of workshops, discussion panels, friends, food and wine. I never fail to learn at these events. My friend and fellow Romaniac, Sue Fortin has posted a wonderful round-up of the weekend here. The RNA has a great post here.

At one point of the proceedings, there was an interesting, unscheduled chat about how comfortable we feel saying we write romantic fiction.

In my early days … okay, two years ago … I was slightly ill at ease telling people I was a writer. It had nothing to do with the genre – I am incredibly happy to be reading and writing romantic fiction – it was more that I had nothing solid to show for my efforts. In April 2012, when my 1500 word story, Bitter Sweet, achieved the runner-up position in Choc Lit’s short story competition, I had my first writing credit, and it was a little easier to speak the words, albeit it quietly, ‘I am a writer.’

Later that year, at the RNA conference in Penrith, the lovely Miranda Dickinson presented a workshop and everything I’d experienced, she too had been through, but she was a writer, and the more she said it, the easier it became to repeat and believe.

I left that presentation motivated and inspired, and still have the postcards Miranda gave out that day, asserting ‘I write, therefore I am a writer.’

Things have progressed for me since then, with Bitter Sweet finding a home in the RNA’s Truly, Madly, Deeply anthology, stories in Romaniac Shorts, publication in Choc Lit’s Love Match, with a second anthology from them out soon, my debut novel, Truth or Dare? digitally published last October and my first paperback, Follow Me, Follow You due out this September. All my stories are romantic fiction.

I’m hoping you’re reading this and picturing me talking about it to you, my eyes wide with excitement, my speech a little too fast for clarity, because I love what I do. I love writing.

And I love writing romantic fiction.

I believe in self-fulfilling prophecies and affirmations. I believe that by saying something often enough, that dream, that hope, will happen. Whether caught up in the enthusiasm or reacting to the broken record, others start to believe too, and things happen.

Yes, we make our own luck, seek out the opportunities, put ourselves forward, but we need to believe in ourselves and in what we do to have the energy to pursue the dream. And that energy and belief will draw people in.

Negative energy will repel.

My name is Laura James, and I write romantic fiction.

It’s a fabulous genre.

Take care.

Laura x